


I Will Bring You in from the Cold

by rafaelbaseball



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: 19x04, Established Relationship, Introspection, Light Angst, Sonny is a Good Boyfriend, deleted scene tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 12:07:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12457455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rafaelbaseball/pseuds/rafaelbaseball
Summary: Nearly forty-seven years into his life, Barba has never been as introspective as he has while being with a man whose goodness demands Barba be better.





	I Will Bring You in from the Cold

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted from [Tumblr](http://rawresparza.tumblr.com/post/166680623496/19x04-deleted-scene-tag). Just a quick tag to the delete scene released this morning from 19x04, which can be found [HERE](https://youtu.be/4ptb2ITDBuk).

The Uber ride is silent. 

Barba stares out the window at buildings and street signs, doing his best to ignore the pair of eyes he can feel still watching him. He ignores the press of a knee against his own, warm even through layers of clothing. He even ignores the calloused but gentle and familiar touch of fingers lacing through his, though he indulges enough in the contact to offer a quick squeeze. It seems to be enough of a prompt, even if that’s not what he’d intended. 

“I can hear you thinking.”

Sonny keeps his voice low, soothing. It’s the way he speaks when he knows he needs to tread lightly. There’s a different tone for when they’re walking casually out on the street, for when they’re meant to be professional, for when they’re curled up in bed and hoping for another rare morning they can bask in the sunlight together as the days grows colder. 

Barba wonders when people had started thinking of him as being so cold. Is it really the suits or has he changed so much that he can’t see past who he wants to be? Nearly forty-seven years into his life, Barba has never been as introspective as he has while being with a man whose goodness demands Barba be better. 

“Any other tricks up your sleeve?” Barba asks. Avoiding questions he doesn’t want to answer is a specialty. It’s a real shame he already knows he’s not slick enough for it to work on Sonny anymore. “Are you going to be able to hear what I’m thinking _about_ next?”

“I already know what you’re thinking about.”

“Didn’t realize I was spending my free time with a walking psychic hotline.”

Push. Push him away. Isn’t it always easier that way? Barba knows what’s coming, after all. 

Sonny shuffles a couple inches closer, a thumb brushing over Barba’s knuckle. God, it feels good. It’s such a simple touch, but Barba feels something in his chest hitch, feels his breath catch, _feels_.

“Do you need to talk about it?”

Barba huffs a laugh, finally shifting his gaze from the streets to those eyes, wide and worried and blue. “It’s nothing I haven’t heard before. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Sonny shakes his head. It’s barely perceptible, but Barba sees it. “That’s not what I asked.”

Swallowing down the lump that’s formed in his throat, Barba rolls his eyes. Push him away, it’s easier. “Please. I don’t _need_ to be subjected to your psychoanalysis, Dr. Carisi.”

Sonny is quiet for a moment, lips pressed into a thin line, and Barba thinks he’s won something he hadn’t wanted. It happens like that, sometimes. As good a man as Sonny, he still has his limits, and Barba likes to test them. He gains no real pleasure out of doing it. He can’t really explain why he does it at all, really. Maybe it has to do with the morbid curiosity he has about why Sonny never leaves. 

“You still want to be a lawyer?” he’d asked. 

The real question is, does Sonny still want to be _with_ a lawyer? Every time Barba asks, in his own ways, the answer seems to be yes. Sonny’s here, Sonny’s holding his hand, Sonny wants to make it better. Sonny always makes it better. It shouldn’t be so difficult to accept that, but all good things come to an end sometime, don’t they? That’s been Barba’s experience, anyway. 

So why is it that every time Sonny wants to take care of him, Barba ends up letting him?

“You’re more than just the expensive suits.” The corner of Sonny’s mouth lifts up into a small, crooked smile at Barba’s look of confusion and mild irritation. “I don’t think too many people realize how hard this job is on you. I think I only really started seeing it after Hodda.”

Sonny doesn’t mention the death threats, but Barba knows he’s thinking about them. He can see it in the way Sonny’s shoulders have tensed ever so slightly and the way Sonny grips his hand a little tighter. He’d seen it in the way Sonny had looked at Mrs. Drake, at anyone associated with a defendant who approaches him outside the courtroom because Sonny has been there for encounters like that before. He knows Sonny wants to make sure he’s there the next time someone threatens to put a bullet in Barba’s head or crack his skull open on the courthouse steps. 

“But if she knew you at all,” Sonny continues, “she’d know you’ve never done this for the power _or_ the damn suits. You don’t do it to get cornered by a perp’s mom or get migraines or to come home so exhausted you barely make it to the bed. You didn’t work so hard your entire life for it to amount to that.”

Barba has to bite down on his bottom lip to keep it from trembling. “Why do I do it, then? Because the suits are an awfully nice perk.”

“You believe in doing the right thing,” Sonny answers, as if it’s that simple. As if nothing else could matter. “And I know I don’t always agree with how you do things, but I do believe in you. I always have. You’re a good man, Rafael.”

It’s funny, in a way, how a man Rafael’s known just a few years could come to understand him so much better than people he’s known his entire life. Sometime it really does feel like a joke, and it’s only a matter of time before the bad punchline arrives. More often than not, though, especially lately, Barba thinks he could really get used to this. 

“So...” Barba lifts an eyebrow, the corners of his lips twitching. “You’re saying you do still want to be with a lawyer?”

“No,” Sonny says, nudging his knee against Barba’s. His dimples are showing now, and it never ceases to amaze Barba just how much they can ease the weight on his shoulders. “I’m saying I want to be with just the one lawyer.”

The Uber slows to a stop in front of Sole di Capri. Hole-in-the-wall Italian. It’d been Sonny’s turn to pick a lunch spot today. 

Barba fights the urge to lean in for a kiss, smirking instead as he thanks their driver then opens the door. With one leg out of the car, he glances over his shoulder, fingers still entwined with Sonny’s. “No objections here.”

The groan that follows from behind him makes Barba laugh for the first time all day.


End file.
